Tag: Dorotheum

Selling Out Chandigarh (2)

I started this series about the Selling Out of Chandigarh Furniture in March (time flies) with this post: Selling out Chandigarh (01) – Introduction. I came across more posts adressing the issue and would like to share some with you:

Midcenturia (the second photo is theirs) devoted a long post on the subject with some nice photos of the process of building Chandigarh. In a comment somebody pointed to a satirical post of Mondo Blog giving rise to some heated debate. Some would call it the “looting” of Chandigarh. The same people behind the Indian adventure (as they call it) were part of stripping some African countries from Jean Prouvé furniture that was sold in auctions all over the place for ginormous amounts: In one of the comments I found these wise words:

You know, this isn’t all. Chandigar’s been getting picked clean of its Le Corbusier furniture, fixtures–and manhole covers for years now.

The part where pickers bribe petty bureaucrats to look the other way while they load their offices and guest houses into a truck makes me angry; but the part where pickers save or salvage the same furniture from garbage bins and government surplus sales makes me want to thank them. The part where some random Chandigarhian is walking home drunk and falls into an open manhole because some dealer wants to make a fast EUR 18,000 at Artcurial, well…

Why post now?

The direct reason for this post was I visited Vienna in February and visited the Dorotheum building while there was another auction on display (Their 2012 Leap Day auction).

“Kangaroo” chair or “Chauffeuse” or more simple: Lounge Chair

Thereafter I rummaged around on their site a bit and found this Chandigarh chair.

I believe it is one of the neater furniture designs for Chandigarh.

I’m royally amazed each time I see a piece of the reasonably raw Chandigarh furniture fetch a high bid at an auction.

“These armchairs are a rare case in which Gebrüder Thonet managed to be a step ahead of its competitor, Kohn, in the early years of the century. In May 1904, in the company magazine “Thonet Zentral Anzeiger”, two armchairs “with ears” were initially presented with catalogue numbers 1051 and 1052, later changed to 6541 and 6542. The two armchairs were manufactured in Bystritz and were placed on the market one year before Kohn’s 666 Model.” (G. Renzi)

Like this:

Unexpectedly I was in Vienna a couple of days where I could take some chair photos. A couple in the Dorotheum where an auction of modern Austrian design was held at Leap Day….until I was forbidden to take photos by a attendant and I didn’t want to go through the hassle of obtaining a press permit.